Wall Street pay has crashed

And the chart below, which is based on compensation data from the
annual Options Group
survey, shows just how much less Wall Streeters earn now than in
2007.

Aside from a short-lived blip in 2009, total compensation has
been heading in one direction: down.

The only business line in which compensation is even close to the
boom-year level is foreign exchange, while at the other end of
the spectrum, those working in equities, prime finance,
securitized products and credit all earn less than half of what
they did in 2007.

The survey takes in the views of the top 25% of performers
at the top 10 firms in each business line. They are asked what
they expect to earn for each calendar year, which includes their
base salary through that year and the bonus paid the following
spring for work through the previous year.

And there are fewer front-office traders too. According to the
data analytics company Coalition, front-office headcounts at
the top 10 banks was 51,000 at the end of the third quarter, down
from 63,900 at the end of the third quarter in 2010. Fixed-income
headcount alone has fallen by 7,000.